- Quality of life and Happiness among Thai Youth - Sirinan Kittisuksathit, PhD* and Wanippol Mahaarcha**
- How Can Young Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Methods within the Young Lives Project - Gina Crivello, Laura Camfield, and Martin Woodhead
- Wellbeing and health factors in Developing Countries: The case of Algeria - Habib Tiliouine and Nabil Bouzid
- Validation of the PANAS scale in the WeD countries - Bex Houghton
- Alleviating depression through international development: potential and risk - Sophie Plagerson
- Migration in a context of rapid change: Identities and aspirations of the young and mobile in Thailand - Susan Upton
- Consumption and wellbeing: motives for consumption and satisfiers in Peru - Monica Guillen Royo
- Title to follow - Rebecca Schaaf
- A qualitative approach to the study of well-being - the advantages of using photo-elicitation
Sophia Gazla
- Proposed Indicators Of Psychological And Subjective Wellbeing
- Emma Samman
- Why Relationships matter: Wellbeing and Happiness in Bangladesh
Kaneta Choudhury

Quality of life and Happiness among Thai Youth

Sirinan Kittisuksathit, PhD* and Wanippol Mahaarcha**
dd14hn@hotmail.com

This study explores the Thai youth life quality and perception of happiness components perceived by youth. The analysis is based on the data of a study on “Geographical Integrated Research on Poverty Prevention in The Western Thailand: Happiness Indicator” conducted by the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University.

The study findings reveal that only 10 components out of 26 are vital in improving a quality of life of young people living in Kanchanaburi province. The most important components for a quality of life include living arrangement and domestic appliances followed by demographic component and living condition. The study concludes that living arrangement acts as a physical factor affecting a quality of life of Thai youth.

The study also shows that the level of life quality among Thai youth in Kanchanaburi is 3.22 from 5. The regression analysis pinpoints that level of education, employment, livelihood satisfaction, health and the perception of standard of housing in comparison with their neighbours have positive association with a feeling of happiness. Those components have directly associated with their living condition and economic status of Thai youth.

How Can Young Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Methods within the Young Lives Project

Gina Crivello, Laura Camfield, and Martin Woodhead*

gina.crivello@qeh.ox.ac.uk

‘Wellbeing’ is a key notion for exploring the lives of children over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are both holistic and contextualized. For this reason it is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15 year project (2000-2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see www.younglives.org.uk). Wellbeing is understood in relation to specific risks and protective processes, and reflects the interaction of factors such as values, expectations, and experiences, and the quality of social networks and material environments. Our study explores what these factors mean, how important they are, and how their interaction differs between generations and across life courses.

The paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture wellbeing in the context of a range of children’s life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. The project is innovative in its inclusion of relatively young children in participatory research (aged six to seven), and development of methodologies that can be applied in diverse cultural contexts, marked by variations in children’s daily lives, their relationships with adults, and preferred ways of communicating their ideas and feelings. This entails using a mix of methods, including participatory techniques such as ‘body mapping’ to explore embodied experiences of wellbeing or illbeing, and the Mosaic Approach (Clark and Moss 2001), which treats young children as the ‘experts in their own lives’.

Drawing on both a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting a selection of methods in the four study countries, this paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

Wellbeing and health factors in Developing Countries: The case of Algeria
Habib Tiliouine, htiliouine@yahoo.fr

The Laboratory of Educational Processes & Social Context (Labo-PECS) of the University of Oran has recently undertaken a series of “Wellbeing surveys” in the Adult population of Algeria. In the second survey, we have, amongst other matters, examined the effects of health factors on Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) in a sample of 2909 participants (1446 males, 1463 females). Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI), along with some more specific satisfaction domains have been used in order to measure SWB. With regard to health factors, respondents have been asked wether they suffer from a heath condition that needs treatment and also to rate the intensity of their daily physical pain, daily anxiety, and daily normal sleep.
In the final analysis, comparisons have been undertaken between the two groups of respondents: ‘the health condition group’ and the ‘no health condition group’ in all the aforementioned domains.
The results indicate that in the context of this Developing country health deficiencies generally have the capacity to reduce the overall feelings of wellbeing and life satisfaction. Previous research findings in Developing countries and the specifics of the Algerian health policies have been taken into consideration in interpreting the results.

KEY WORDS: Subjective Wellbeing, Personal Wellbeing Index, Algerian Health system, Algerian population

Validation of the PANAS scale in the WeD countries

Bex Houghton
ps3rjh@bath.ac.uk

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was developed by Watson, Clark and Tellegen (1988) and consists of two ten-item scales, one of which measures positive affect (PA) and the other negative affect (NA). It was used by the WeD project to enable comparison with data from a range of population groups worldwide, albeit that this predominantly originated in western countries. Where the schedule has been used with non-western participants, its validity has not been interrogated, and this provided an interesting opportunity for WeD to explore the interrelationship between the universal and the local in the context of psychological measurement.

Interestingly, the two-factor structure of the PANAS found by Watson et al (1988) and in subsequent validation studies, was not found in any of the WeD countries. Additionally, the schedule was found to be problematic to translate and administer and insufficiently comprehensive. In Ethiopia, this lead to the production of an Ethiopia-PANAS, which was felt to better represent the complexity of Ethiopian emotional experience. The results from a factor analysis of this extra scale also do not reveal a two-factor solution but when analysed alongside the original PANAS items, they add significantly to the reliability of both the positive and negative affect scales.

The paper concludes that while so-called universal measures of psychological constructs in cultures may not translate to cultures other than those they were developed in, creative adaptation can produce a valid and reliable alternative measure.

‘ Migration in a context of rapid change: Identities and aspirations of the young and mobile in Thailand’

Susan Upton ecmseu@bath.ac.uk

Thailand is undergoing a period of immense rapid change; it has been for a century. The processes of this change have been written about by historians, academics and policy makers alike, essentialising the course of this transformation, which has been represented as a linear transformation from a rural economy to a newly industrialised one, with its ultra modern centre of Bangkok. Rural areas and people stand in stark contrast to these ideal ‘modern’ representations of Thailand and its future directions. This thesis therefore challenges dominant notions of change and development in Thailand.

I focus specifically on the lives and aspirations of the rural poor, especially the young and mobile. Migration is increasingly important for sources of income and has become an important part of the life course of the current generation, meaning that migrants’ lives frequently cross over between rural and urban social and cultural contexts. By focusing on the lives of the young and mobile this fieldwork argues that poor rural migrants should be viewed as agents of change, in their own lives nd in society. This is done through a collection of life history biographies that I analyse split between two main findings chapters; firstly motivations and experiences of migration by gender and secondly; a cohort, life-cycle and intergenerational analysis which provide the next level of analysis on societal change both in individuals’ lives and wider society.

Findings illustrate that there are differences between male and female motivations and experiences during migration and this is seen by the types of migration and length of periods in the city. My findings also point to the importance of autonomy in identity construction as all groups have aspirations for autonomy in the sense of ‘ideal personhood’, with females in particular trading off particular freedoms by working in the city for greater autonomy and freedom when they return to the village, which nearly all respondents aspire to do. I challenge dichotomies such as ‘dutiful daughter vs. modern woman’ thinking and rural vs. urban, and instead argue the need for academics to value fusion and oscillations, as these are states of creativity and active self-making. Generational change is happening rapidly, with differences noted in cohorts, thus making life courses between different generations very different, having implications for family relations, self perceptions and therefore also the future of rural areas, people and change in Thailand.

Keywords: Thailand, Migration, Identity, Agency, Gender, Social and Generational Change.

Consumption and wellbeing: motives for consumption and satisfiers in Peru

Monica Guillen Royo ssmmgr@bath.ac.uk

My research explores how consumption impacts on people’s happiness in the seven WeD Peruvian communities. It draws on social science literature on consumption and incorporates the key factors highlighted by the research on wellbeing determinants. Generally, it is accepted that consumption increases wellbeing by lifting people out of poverty and that it has a negative impact if it fails to place them at a higher social position. Other aspects defining consumption such as the symbolic meaning of goods, its pleasurable dimension, the role of goods and services as basic needs satisfiers, etc. have not been systematically approached from the perspective of their effect on wellbeing. The research takes on this challenge by incorporating the most salient features of consumption studied by social scientists through the concepts of motives. It draws on psychologists’ claim that motives are important in understanding the linkages between wellbeing and people’s behaviour.
The research follows a multi-methods approach that takes into account the local specificities of consumption, whilst aiming for a global understanding of the key factors mediating its relationship with human wellbeing; accounting for its objective and subjective dimensions. It uses regression analysis to study how consumption affects happiness through total expenditure and motives. The research finds, as expected, that in the Peruvian communities consumption enhances happiness when it improves basic needs levels and places people above their reference group. People consuming because of hedonic reasons are also happier, but those consuming for social integration are not. Moreover, feeling compelled to buy ‘necessities’ is negatively associated with happiness. One of the reasons might be the type of satisfiers used.

Alleviating depression through international development: potential and risk.
Sophie Plagerson sophie.plagerson@lshtm.ac.uk

This paper provides an overview of the domains of research and practice in which mental health affects, and is affected by, international development, with a particular focus on depression and anxiety. The paper initially reflects on the gradual convergence of concepts deriving from economic, social, anthropological and medical sciences, by comparing and contrasting the origins and development of the notions of wellbeing and mental health. Common conceptual frameworks, measurement challenges in a cross-cultural context, and substantive and methodological complementarities are explored.

A brief review of the literature on poverty and mental illness illustrates the emerging consensus that poverty is both a cause and consequence of mental ill-health, and highlights underlying causal pathways.

Four dimensions in which programmes and policies to alleviate poverty interact with mental health are identified: exclusion, process, participation and outcome. Those who are mentally ill and are eligible to participate in pro-poor assistance programmes or to benefit from pro-poor policies, may in reality be excluded, as a result of the nature of mental illness and the self-imposed or societally imposed isolation it incurs. The process of accessing a programme can be a barrier which disproportionately affects those suffering from mental distress. The bureaucratic hurdles, frequently associated with targeting of national scale programmes, can be stigmatising and lead to psychological distress in addition to financial and opportunity costs. Thirdly, poverty reduction programmes under the umbrella of development necessarily seek to bring about change. Rapid change in particular is associated with mental health fluctuations. Fourthly, favourable outcomes such as improved access to schooling for girls, smoothed incomes, returns to investments, reduced vulnerability to economic risks can provide layers of protection against mental illness.

In conclusion it is suggested that context and programme design and implementation may positively or negatively influence the pathway by which international development affects mental health. Recommendations for further research and policy implications for alleviating the double exclusion experienced by the poor and mentally ill in developing countries are outlined.

Sophie Plagerson
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Keppel Street
London WC1E 7HT
Tel: 02079588176
Email: sophie.plagerson@lshtm.ac.uk

A qualitative approach to the study of well-being – the advantages of using photo-elicitation

Sophia Gazla sg267@bath.ac.uk

The poster reviews the advantages and limitations of ‘photo-elicitation’ for understanding individual and collective well-being, building on research with people involved in the emergent ‘dubstep’ music sub-culture in Bristol. It also describes how using qualitative and person-centred techniques enabled an analysis that owed as much to humanist as to ‘positive’ psychology, despite its focus on happiness and well-being. Photo-elicitation originated within anthropology and sociology and uses visual images such as photographs as a stimulus during the interview stage of research. The process allows participants to discuss feelings and meanings evoked by these images, encouraging a more comprehensive account of reality than through conversation alone.

I employed the photo-elicitation technique to study wellbeing among a group of respondents who identified creativity as central to their lives, and were keen to express this through a participatory research method. The initial brief asked seven prolific male ‘dubstep’ producers to take up to ten photographs of areas, aspects or things in their lives that affect how good they feel. Music was the prevailing theme and this was expressed through multiple components including intrinsically motivated aspirations and achievements, creativity, relatedness and social activities/ leisure. Other themes were interpersonal relationships, culture and personal growth, health, leisure, environment, nature and weather. The photographs taken by the participant included everyday objects, such as music equipment and food, outside spaces, and people, all of which represented some aspect of their life

The benefits of this method were evident in interview direction as employing photographs facilitated the flow of the interview by breaking down the barriers between the researcher and the participant, enabling the researcher to obtain rich data and a fuller comprehension of individual context. Participants also enjoyed participating in the project and felt the method enabled them to represent their lives as a whole. The photographs were highly beneficial in aiding the interpretation of findings during analysis of the interviews in conjunction with interpretive phenomenological analysis. This enabled the findings to be shared more widely; in this case, the photographs were used as a collective art project to create a Bristol ‘dubstep’ album sleeve.

Photo-elicitation provided a mechanism for both the interviewee and the researcher to infer meaning through the photographs, since they represented the link between the social and the personal world. The photographs enabled the findings to be analysed individually and based on collective comparative analysis. Photo-elicitation aided the understanding not only of people’s concepts and experiences of wellbeing, but also the extent to which these were influenced by their participation in the dubstep sub-culture. In conclusion, the processual and analytical benefits described above suggest that future research on wellbeing within the social sciences should consider using this technique.

Proposed Indicators Of Psychological And Subjective Wellbeing
Emma Samman emma.samman@st-antonys.oxford.ac.uk

Recent years have witnessed an outpouring on research on subjective wellbeing, and growing calls for some variant of happiness to be adopted as a policy goal of both developing and developed countries. While this emphasis on happiness has also been critiqued on many fronts, it is hard to dispute that psychological and subjective states of wellbeing have intrinsic and instrumental value. In particular, they stand to contribute to a richer understanding of human experience and values, and particularly the importance of its non-material components.

This paper argues that while the new emphasis on subjective wellbeing draws into relief an important topic, its current usage tends to blur many conceptual differences between happiness and satisfaction, and largely to overlook more robust measures of psychological wellbeing. The paper proposes to gather data on psychological and subjective wellbeing. The following criteria were used to choose suitable indicators for inclusion in individual or household surveys. First, the indicators need to be internationally comparable. At present, there is a dearth of data available on subjective perceptions in developing countries, particularly as they pertain to psychological wellbeing. Second, the indicators should assess not only the instrumental but also the intrinsic aspects of psychological and subjective wellbeing. Third, the choice of indicator shortlists draws on experience with particular indicators to date wherever possible, though some of the psychological wellbeing questionnaires have only been used on a very limited basis in representative surveys. Nonetheless, the recommended questionnaires have all exhibited high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, structural validity, and convergent and discriminant analysis.

We argue for a two-pronged approach to measuring psychological wellbeing based on: 1) perception of meaning in life – defined by the individual based on his/her own unique potential; and 2) the ability to strive towards excellence in fulfilling this idea. To develop these concepts, we draw upon Steger’s Meaning in Life questionnaire (Steger et al. 2006), and on Deci and Ryan’s measures of the psychological needs associated with goal identification and pursuit, which in turn predict ‘optimal functioning’ (Ryan and Deci 2000, 2001). To capture subjective wellbeing, we argue for the separate measurement of life satisfaction and happiness, and that the satisfaction measure consider both life overall and several distinct domains that are argued to be important. Overall, seven indicators are proposed to cover 1) meaning in life; 2-4) the three “basic psychological needs” of autonomy, competence and relatedness; 5-6) overall and domain-specific life satisfaction; and 7) happiness.

Why Relationships matter: Wellbeing and Happiness in Bangladesh

Kaneta Choudhury psmkkc@bath.ac.uk

Despite Bangladesh’s reputation as one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, both qualitative research and anecdotal evidence suggest that its people report higher levels of happiness than those found in many other countries, including developed countries.
The paper explores this apparent paradox by analyzing primary quantitative and qualitative data, and engaging with existing literature on happiness and objective wellbeing in Bangladesh.
The data and analysis identify and offer insights into the ‘personal’ as well as social or ‘relational’ values and goals that people in Bangladesh consider important to achieve happiness in life. It also reflects on how different people experience these values and goals in very different ways. This, we argue, leads to a better understanding of the influence of the social and cultural context in the construction of people’s happiness.

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